About

I have been blogging at The Dalton Minimum Returns about the return of the next grand minimum since 2006. I have written about climate change and it’s implications at NC Media Watch for seven years. I have decided it is time to terminate both of these blogs and focus just on The Next Grand Minimum.

This blog will examine issues which I believe are related to preparing for and surviving the next Grand Minimum:

Knowledge of past Grand Minimums. (Dalton and Maunder)

Solar activity and it’s influence on climate change. (Solar)

Weather and ocean dynamics and their impact on agriculture (Weather)

Vulcanism and it’s connection to climate change. (Vulcanism)

Cosmic rays and climate impact. (Cosmic Rays)

Legislation and regulations that can inhibit survival preparation. (Politics)

Surviving social unrest created by climate change. (Survival)

Political action needed to enhance survival on a cooling planet. (Political Action)

Economic indicators, including energy and grain prices. (Economics)

Harbingers of a cooling world (Analysis)

When political action is required, I will point the reader to a list of contacts for our political leaders where they can send an e-mail, post a tweet or comment on a Facebook Page.

I read the whole article and there was a lot of was-was not much hard evidence. I was intrigued by this statement, after hearing the EPA testify they had no recored of fracking contaminating a domestic water supply. Yet we get this from the article:

The Times investigation also explodes the industry’s decade-old mantra that a “there is not a single documented case of drinking water being contaminated by fracking.” The Times investigation of EPA archives exposes this claim as demonstrably false.

Where were the facts. How many case, what were the circumstances. We know of some well casing failures, but they were not the result of the fracking, only sloppy capping of the well.

Green groups have a major new concern: fracking, the process of extracting natural gas from shale deposits far underground. . .

But is there evidence of this? In testimony prepared for a Senate Energy and Water Committee panel hearing Thursday, Tom Beauduy, deputy executive director of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, says no.

That’s key because one of America’s largest shale depositories is the Marcellus deposit, which lies mainly underneath the basin. Both sprawl across New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The deposit has been widely explored. More than 1,000 fracking sites have been permitted.
Since 2008, the basin commission created an elaborate 50-station monitoring system.

“We are not aware of any water quality impacts on systems,” Beauduy told IBD. “There have been incidents related to individual wells, but not to public water supply systems.”

That is in line with other surveys. A 2008 study by the Groundwater Protection Council, a coalition of state environmental agencies, found the “potential for impacts to surface water and groundwater … are expected to be minimal.”

A 2010 study by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection admitted the “theoretical possibility” of contamination, but concluded: “no groundwater pollution or disruption of underground sources of drinking water have been attributed to hydraulic fracturing of deep gas formations.”

Most criticism of fracking cites Dimock, Pa., where leakage from wells did seep into local groundwater. The drilling company was fined and required to provide the town with drinking water. The state environmental agency determined that the leakage was caused by faulty well casings, not by the fracking itself.

Thanks Russ,
My instinct is not to trust the oil and gas industry but I don’t take stands on issues I don’t understand. I get the basic idea but know there seem to be unintended consequences with all this and it is usually the people who end up holding the bag to clean it up the mess when all is said and done, except for the profits of course those stay with the companies.

I find it really ironic that Robert Kennedy is busy chastising the unconventional natural gas industry. Which Kennedy was it that that made a name for himself allying himself with Citgo and Hugo Chavez to supply cheap heating oil to the poor in New England? Now Robert Kennedy is doing all he can to vilify an emerging industry that will likely provide clean, cheap energy to the entire American economy.

Russ,
As a principled blogger in the climate debate you will be fully aware of the growing public debate over the greenhouse gas ‘theory.’ Lately Fred Singer, Roy Spencer and Dick Lindzen have come out to make vituperative but ‘science-free’ responses to the growing body of new work refuting the GHE and the role of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. My colleagues and I sincerely want a full public debate on this issue conducted in an agreeable and dignified fashion befitting a truly ‘skeptic’ approach as I’ve sought to present in my latest article:http://www.webcommentary.com/docs/jo120310.pdf
Is there anything you feel you could do to contribute to this endeavor?
Many thanks,
John

I would like to extend to you personal invitation to check my feature length documentary on the “cold facts” of Global Warming entitled “The Boy Who Cried Warming,” available in full at http://www.theboywhocriedwarming.com. The virtual premier has been enjoyed by over 12,000 viewers due to a grassroots campaign effort of handing out flyers and emailing people just like you! We are independent filmmakers without corporate sponsorship, every view counts to us, and we would truly appreciate if you would take a look and (if you enjoy the film) encourage others to check it out. The list of websites mentioning our film growing, and we would be honored if you would join the growing list distinguished sites below:

I think the thesis of a new more or less little ice age caused my the sun is groundbreaking.Although not a climatologist i came to the same conclusions over the years as an amateur and only superifical researcher.March here in Germany is the coldest in a 100 years now.Last summer was really rainy and cold.People had to heat their homes in August/September 2012.Ridiculed then by the usual green malthusian crowd its not so funny any more.Congrats to your great blog and keep on researching.Please make the news linkable via facebook.

The coming Solar minimum is intentional. The only way to counter the irresponsible production of greenhouse gases was too manipulate the Sun’s output. Humans are a violent and primitive species that cannot manage it’s affairs, so intervention was required. Fossil fuels will continue to be burned until it is uneconomical. Human incompetence will make nuclear energy undesirable.

Its sounds fantastic, it will be dismissed as ridiculous and unsupportabele etc., but there is more to the Universe than you know of. The explanation is a long one, if you can answer the following four questions a dialogue may begin:

What is gravity? (The Einstein description is wrong)
What is Dark Matter?
What is Dark Energy?
What existed before the Big Bang?

Sir, I’m having a whale of a time trying to find your contact information so this will have to do.

My name is Ben Davidson; I run the Suspicious0bservers channel on YouTube. Your website was forwarded to me by a website member and I cannot believe you and I have not gotten together. I have been discussing similar topics for a long time, and it would be spectacular for the understanding of these studies if we could do a show together. Phone call, Skype conversation, even and email Q&A would be valued with the highest degree by both of our followings.

I am not sure if these things matter to you (the do not matter to me), but the channel has 150,000 subscribers, 50,000 of which watch every single day without fail.

I couldn’t help but catch that last comment on this page… a german professor would know that they still put ‘spaces’ after sentences end. Your subtlety in reply is a lesson I have yet to learn.

Please send me an email or contact me through YouTube or respond here with other contact information (I have email-reply checked below). Your time is appreciated.